Watch: Horse saved during frantic police rescue after falling through icy pond in New York
The rescue team’s immediate worry was that the horse was going to either pull the rescue team into the frozen pond or that he was going to break the ice even more and go underwater.
New York police rescue horse from icy pond
Kyle Clinton, police officer with the Saratoga Springs Police Department, spoke about how he and his team pulled a 1,300-pound horse out of an icy pond before the animal froze to death.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Several police officers banded together to rescue a horse that had fallen into a frozen pond in Saratoga Springs, New York, Monday.
Their body cameras were rolling when they arrived at the scene and immediately began trying to pull the animal out.
Officer Kyle Clinton, who was involved with the rescue, said he initially had doubts about whether they would be able to pull the horse out of the water.
Some members of the rescue trying to pull the horse out of the water.
(Saratoga Springs Police Department / FOX Weather)
"My mind kind of went to, ‘We're not going to be able to get this animal out,’" he told FOX Weather. "Horses have a tendency to react very poorly when they get in situations like that. They have a tendency to freak out."
He noted that his team’s immediate worry was that the horse was going to either pull the rescue team into the frozen pond or break the ice even more and go underwater.
The team tied a rope around the animal, who by that point had been in the icy water for about 10 minutes, Clinton said. Rescuers worried the longer he stayed in the water, the greater his chances of dying from hypothermia.
As the horse thrashed while scrambling to climb from the ice, he brought his front legs onto the ice, which the team took as a better opportunity to pull the rope. They would continue to pull multiple times before the horse was finally brought out of the water.
The horse, back on land.
(Saratoga Springs Police Department / FOX Weather)
The horse was then attended to by veterinarians who said his body temperature had dropped to a dangerous 92 degrees. The horse was quickly warmed and is on the road to recovery.
For Clinton, a horse owner himself, this experience was a unique one.
"Over the years that I've owned horses, I've seen them get into some of the craziest predicaments – stuck in fences, stuck in hay feeders. I mean, if you can think of it, they've done it or broken it," he said. "But this is definitely the first time I've seen a horse go through a pond like this and then been able to pull them back out."